


crushed little stars

by jannah (fromjannah)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Eldritch, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Resurrected Wilbur Soot, The Void, also a little inspo from editor wilbur, imagine that but dsmp, look i just think that wilbur should come back as an eldritch void being and go absolutely feral, not actually RPF, remember the laser mod vod with voidbur?, this piece is an entire mess lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-28 16:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30142209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromjannah/pseuds/jannah
Summary: Somehow, though, he still feels that stillness inside of him, deep in his stomach -- no, sitting under the flat shield of his breastbone, like a soul. And he feels the stillness around him as well, etched into the shadows of the small bedroom he's in, waiting for him in apprehension. It’s ancient and it’s burrowed itself into him.Fleetingly, he wonders if this is how Phil, centuries old and only getting older, feels.Wilbur is brought back from his beloved void and a piece of it comes with him.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 86





	1. 'til then i can try again

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 1) the DAHB group talking about Wilbur getting resurrected and appearing up north where Phil is (because he killed him) instead of with Dream, 2) the laser mod video, and 3) editor!Wilbur from the ARG who I just think is neat. 
> 
> God, this one's a mess. There's a reason I don't use Wilbur's POV very often. Honestly, I'm not happy with this at all, but some of this prose was too nice to give up. 
> 
> Title is from Mitski's "My Body's Made of Crushed Little Stars". This is about the DSMP characters, not the CCs. Possible tw for mentions of death and also some derealization maybe? Let me know if I should add other warnings. Enjoy.

When Dream resurrects Wilbur Soot, the man does not appear in the cell alongside him like Tommy did. No, Dream makes an error, the arrogant error of assumption. 

Wilbur Soot does not appear in the obsidian cell. Instead, he spawns up north. 

He is confused by a few things as he awakens: the harsh light that fills his vision, the bed that creaks under him, the distinct chill that lays itself across him like a blanket. 

This is not his void. 

He sits up, cautious, heart beating in a frantic rhythm in his ears -- he has a _pulse,_ that's something he hasn't heard in _years._ He swallows and the saliva slides down his trachea. His tongue sits like lead in his mouth. 

"Fuck," he says out loud, experimentally; his voice is coarse like a cellist's bow with too much rosin. It doesn't echo around a swallowing black hole, it vibrates into the air like a couple of sounds and nothing more. 

Weakly, he grips at the sides of the bed and shuts his eyes for a long moment. _"Fuck,"_ he repeats on a groan, chest constricting on itself, a headache pounding angrily at his left temple like a noisy guest coming to take residence. Why couldn't they just let him stay dead? Why did the people of this goddamned server always want more and more? Why did he have to be dragged away from his void?

He sits back, head banging lightly on the bed frame as he squints at the mottled ceiling, then over to the small window that displays a winter landscape. Where the hell is he, even? 

Rubbing his arms, he frowns. Wherever this is, it's fucking _cold,_ and the thin shirt and trousers -- not his trench coat? -- he has been brought back in offer little warmth. Then again, most temperatures would be a shock compared to the assuaging listlessness purgatory of his void. 

A fierce sense of longing nearly overwhelms him. He’s been in the overworld for mere moments and he already misses being dead. 

Somehow, though, he still feels that stillness inside of him, deep in his stomach -- no, sitting under the flat shield of his breastbone, like a soul. And he feels the stillness around him as well, etched into the shadows of the small bedroom he's in, waiting for him in apprehension. It’s ancient and it’s burrowed itself into him. 

Fleetingly, he wonders if this is how Phil, centuries old and only getting older, feels. 

Oh, he’ll have to face _Phil._ Christ, being alive is a right pain in the ass.

The stream of ponderings are interrupted as he shivers, biting the inside of his cheek as he gets up on surprisingly steady legs. There is a chest pushed up against the wall full of neatly folded clothes, pressed and ready, as if for a guest.

He aimlessly takes out a maroon jumper from the top of the pile and pulls it on. It's not short but it is awfully loose in the shoulders and arms, knit for someone with proper muscle, not his spindly arms. The fabric smells of freshly tilled dirt and polished metal and horsehair. It's familiar but his tired mind can't bother to place it right now -- Schlatt had always been the one to categorize scents. 

The memory of Schlatt strikes a discordant chord across him and he frowns despite himself. It wasn't like they had both particularly enjoyed each other's company, certainly not after the election, but, well, they had been stuck together for nearly a decade. Not every shared cigarette or tasteless drink had been horrible. 

If anything, Schlatt is familiar. Wherever Wilbur is now, however he's here -- this is not familiar in the slightest. The void had been his home, loving in its carelessness, comforting in its neutrality. He had spent so much time shuffling around sides, inserting himself this way and that in wars, bearing the label of _hero_ or _villain_ scrawled across his forehead for everyone to see. The void is different; it is unconcerned with his foolish desires and whims, only offering a stack of cards or a lighter for his endless tedium. 

He had always cared too much; his void didn’t care at all. It was something he had desired to emulate, somehow -- as if a man could vie with an eternal force. But Wilbur Soot has always been something of a man with impossible desires. There is a reason that the sky gods he had once contested with had sent him to the closest thing they had to purgatory instead of a proper afterlife. 

Wilbur Soot has also always been something of a man who thirsts for knowledge. And after years of getting to know his void -- 

He rubs his knuckles against the bone of his sternum again, an ephemeral razor-edge of a smile flitting across his face. Something has been given for his years in limbo. He is not truly without his home. 

He flexes his fingers, which a touch too pale and a touch too long, nearly like a skeleton’s, thrumming with raw energy. The nails curve into almost sharp points, not dirty and uneven like they had been in his previous life. His writing and guitar calluses are gone as well. A faint pang of disappointment deep inside of him about a life long gone goes off, but he hurriedly shoves it away, down into the black hole in his chest.

Delighted, he notes that he is finally free of the pains that had plagued him always, alive and afterwards: the constant crick in his neck and the soreness in his back of life, the perpetual sensation of a sword driving itself through his stomach of death. There is the headache, but it is fading as his eyes finally begin to adjust to the sheer brightness of the tundra he is surrounded by. He doesn’t feel nine years older; if anything, he feels younger, decades so -- he is full of the vertiginous fearlessness of adolescence.

A giddy, unbidden giggle burbles up his throat, a sudden grin stretching his lips so wide that it’s nearly painful. He’s not cold anymore, and it’s not just the jumper providing sanctuary from the chill. 

Why he’s here, why he has been brought back -- it doesn’t matter, not with power intimately instilled between his ribs, so easily in reach. There are a thousand desires thundering around his mind -- to drag at a cigarette, to try for a new personal record in solitaire, to nonsensically wax philosophical with his old rival, to hold his brother in the crook of his arm and far away from anyone else, to find the green bastard who must’ve brought him back and drain everything drop of blood from his body, to ask his father if he’s been able to live with himself. 

Underlying it all, deeper than the darkness that has distilled itself into his blood and bones, it’s the sense of wrongness, of unbelonging. Wilbur is well-acquainted with being an outsider -- Christ’s sake, he had been exiled from his own country -- but this is different, this is a yearning to return to his home, the inverse of the wanderlust that had plagued him in his first life.

He paces the room, running a hand through the curls of his thick hair, then a finger down his nose -- it had been crooked, once, cracked in a tussle when he was younger, but it was completely straightened out now. He is thinking of a thousand things -- what he desires, the reasons why he could be here, how he needs to find his brother because everyone in this server is out to get the two of them, all of the people he has to face. He is walking faster and faster but he stops himself, reaching for the stillness inside of him, reaching for the stillness in the shadows, reaching for the stillness in the memory of his far-off home. 

He holds himself quiet; it is a rare thing for Wilbur Soot to be still, not tapping a foot or nodding to some unheard melody or scratching away some writing. But now he is unmoving, same as the patient pocket of the darkness in him.

Patient. Yes, his void is patient, so he will be, too. 

He looks out to the white landscape, then to the distance. He has people to find, places to go, speeches to give, a message to preach, offerings to give, something to exalt, a new purpose to fulfill. 

Wilbur closes his hands into fists; not to fight, but to harness the power of dying stars and resurrected men. 

He has work to do.

\---

Phil stares at his doorstep in what can only be shock.

He had been laughing, before, earlier; today had been a good day, by all measures -- _had_ is the operating word here. All previous joy has left him, now there is only numb, cold shock.

There are so many questions, the first one naturally being _how is Wilbur here?_ and _that’s not Ghostbur, is it?,_ closely followed by _is that even Wilbur at all?_

This looks more like Wilbur in a different universe, shifted over just barely. He is all monochrome: white skin, black eyes, white-gray-black hair. He’s so skinny, all bones and bone-colored. The only splotch of color on him is on a jumper which is the color of drying blood. 

But the strangest thing isn’t his appearance, it’s something _about_ him, a yawning sense of utter wrongness and unfamiliarity and this is Phil’s son and this is an impostor. There is some kind of energy, one that Phil has never encountered in his very long life.

Wilbur is staring at him and he is entirely unreadable -- that’s wrong, that’s so wrong, Wilbur was always the expressive one, the one who always showed something, true or false -- and his dark, dark eyes are shreds of an endless expanse. No, no this is definitely not a ghost.

“Wil?” whispers Phil finally, the single heavy syllable flinging itself into the wind.

A thundercrack of a smile flashes across Wilbur’s face; his teeth look sharper, somehow and a deep, primal fear strikes itself into Phil’s veins -- he has never encountered death, after all, but here, he is seeing a shadow of it. 

“Dad,” Wilbur simpers, affectionate and insulting, his voice a rasp that grates at Phil’s ears. 

He moistens his lips, feeling his chest heave. He tries to say something, but the words can’t leave his mouth. Wilbur notices this and his expression turns almost pitying. 

“Oh, Phil,” he says, commiserating, and then he laughs, a chilling, high sound that rises into the air for all to hear. He sighs, shaking his head, as if Phil is the young son who doesn’t understand. And, well, he fucking _doesn’t._ “You were too late again.” 

And then he’s gone. 

Phil lurches forward, he has been frozen down to his core, reaching into empty space -- but no, somehow, some way, Wilbur has vanished. Not like with a pearl, Phil had blinked and he had fucking _disappeared._

Everything he had to do today is long forgotten. Phil has only been bestowed a mission, a need to find his son again. 

Yes, he has work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in... sometime soon... for a conversation between Phil and Wilbur, hopefully.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are very rad.


	2. would you kill me in jerusalem?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally back! Holy hell this took a lot out of me to write -- multiple headaches and three drafts. I was seriously considering editing this to be only one chapter but then I saw people had subbed to this and y'all were being so kind on the other chapter and well here we are. Still not entirely happy with the pacing of this, but I'm glad it's done. 
> 
> Sincerest thanks to Clarke and Weston who had to hear me complain non-stop about this goddamned chapter. You both are the best internet siblings I could ask for. 
> 
> TW for some implications of suicidal thoughts -- basically Wilbur is not vibing with being resurrected, so there are some harsh feelings around that. 
> 
> This kind of went from "haha voidbur goes brr" to some mess about familial relationships and other things so. Eh? Ehhh? 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy.

The problem is that Phil does not find Wilbur, even though he scours the whole server as much as he can in a day. In fact, it’s like the scene on the doorstep had been some kind of twisted nightmare. There’s no sign of Wilbur anywhere in the entire SMP, no  _ WilburSoot fell from a high place  _ or  _ WilburSoot made an advancement  _ or anything like that. He’s gone. Phil’s almost convinced himself that it had just been a product of some horrified imagination. 

Until Phil finds Wilbur laying, fast asleep on the bed in his guest room, just over a day after the encounter on a late afternoon. 

He rides the initial shock like a surging wave, only leaving him with the thought of  _ he looks so at peace. _

And he does. The deep-set forehead wrinkles that had accompanied in life have smoothed out entirely and his brow is furrowed only slightly; Wilbur has always been someone who thinks too much, even in sleep.

Nostalgia crashes inside the hollow of Phil’s stomach; how simple things would be if he could just run a hand through the mussed curls of his son’s hair, kiss his forehead, pull a blanket over him. 

If only.

Phil only leans against the doorframe, swallowing the tightness of his throat down. He can’t imagine why Wilbur would be here, where he’s been for the day, what he could’ve been doing. 

But Wilbur’s here now. His image is like smoke over water, a mirage in the distance yet the sheets of the beds are twisted around his very real weight -- he’s  _ here.  _ Phil’s son, however changed, is home. 

He used to do this, back when Wilbur was small: just stand in the doorway, watch him sleep, watch him be near-calm for once. It was grounding, it was reaffirming, it was a sign that Phil hadn’t failed him and he was still breathing and real.

Phil  _ had  _ failed Wilbur; his breathing had ceased, his soul had fled. But he’s back, now, somehow, some way, and Phil cannot lose this opportunity. 

He stands and he waits. Yes, Phil will always wait for his son. 

\---

Wilbur bolts awake in a small room colored by a setting sun. He’s gasping for air and he’s unconsciously rocking back and forth; this is not the gentle dawning of him coming back to life, this is a visceral coming-to. His mind is racing, he can’t remember what he had been doing, how he had gotten here. He had been waiting, looking. For what?  _ Something.  _ Something for his void, something necessary -- but what could his void need? He had thought that he had needed to spread a message, work for something but no, why would the void need that? It doesn’t need anything, need anyone. 

No, no,  _ Wilbur  _ needed it, he had been searching, he had been  _ lost.  _ Yes, that was it, lost -- he hadn’t been searching for a  _ thing,  _ he had been searching for a path. A path back to his home, because his skin kept switching between being on fire and being made of ice. His soul is all jagged and wrong in his body, he’s not meant to be here, damn it, he had wanted to  _ go home -- _

“...il? Wil?  _ Wil!”  _

There are hands on his shoulders; warm, heavy, well-worn hands that could move mountains, set on his shoulders. The touch makes Wilbur still and seize all at once; it’s so solid and it pulls him down to earth but  _ he does not want to be here --  _

He pulls back forcefully, gulping down air and spit, then choking out a cough. Blinking rapidly, he looks up into his father’s concerned face, oh, he’s full of so much  _ concern.  _

His breath feels scratchy in his throat, and the chill has come upon him all of a sudden. The stillness of his chest is so far away and unattainable, there is only the hammering of his heart.

“Wil?” asks Phil again, still delicate but now a pace away, giving him space. 

He scrubs at his eyes, clenches his jaw to stop the shattering of his teeth. He’s here, in this room: in between the twisted sheets, set on the wooden bed, pushed up against the solid wall. All of this realness is the antithesis of his void. He hates it fiercely. “Phil,” he says, once, voice like the scraping of unpolished stone, then repeats it:  _ “Phil.” _

Phil’s expression is shattered, opened, waiting. Waiting, yes, Phil always waits, doesn’t he? Even when he shouldn’t, when he should let Wilbur go. 

He vocalizes this, “I need to go”, even though he has no idea where to go, just not here, anywhere but here, and gets up on legs that shake and threaten to give out. Phil surges forward, a force of nature in motion. 

“No,” he says, a protest, a plea, a command. “No, Wil, you can’t -- look at you, at least stay, I won’t make you talk -- “

Some part of Wilbur finds that hard to believe. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he mutters, tearing a hand through his hair. He hiccups, a strangled noise of a sob. “I can’t -- need to go back -- “

“Go back where?” asks Phil and he’s begging, again, for some shred of understanding.

Wilbur shakes his head, rubs his arms. “You wouldn’t get it,” he says because why would he? Phil is some kind of immortal, he has never lost a permanent life, never seen the glory of his void. Wilbur has met death, he has learned every one of its secrets and loved it dearly --  _ loves,  _ still does, always will, how dearly he loves that peace, that unjudging caress, how he misses it. Phil may always wait, but the void waits longer. 

“I’ll try to,” Phil says, reaching for one of Wilbur’s hands. “Please, Wil, just stay.”

Wilbur moves away his hand in a fluid motion, refusing to be soothed, refusing to experience another reminder that he is stuck in this very real world. “You wouldn’t  _ get it,”  _ he repeats, voice raising in a sudden crescendo, right from mezzo piano to forte. “No one would  _ get it --  _ Phil, I’m supposed to be fucking  _ dead!” _

A pause. Shock freezes onto Phil’s features, his mouth moves without making sound.

A hysterical laugh tears itself out of Wilbur’s throat, raw and ugly. “No one asked me if I wanted this,” he says, voice cracking pathetically, tears beading at the corners of his eyes, hot against his cold, cold skin. “I just -- there’s a reason, Phil, there’s a reason I asked you to kill me.”

Phil flinches, tries to interrupt: “But it’s a second chance -- “

_ “And I don’t want it!”  _ Wilbur screams, wet and bloody and damning, his entire body shaking with sobbing and shivering. He splays a hand against his sternum, shutting his eyes, seeking the stillness,  _ his  _ stillness, god, he doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want to  _ feel  _ all this. 

A whisper, now: “I’m not supposed to be here, Phil.” He swallows, trying to control his breathing but the darkness is not there -- maybe it had been taken from him, a punishment for being so cocky and thinking that he truly knew the void, how could a man understand something so eternal? It had been a gift, he had abused it. “I thought there was a reason, but of course there isn’t, obviously there wouldn’t be.” 

Confusion flashes across Phil’s face. “A reason -- why does there need to be a reason?” 

Now Wilbur is the perplexed one; of course there are reasons for everything, the void is all-knowing and it has -- had? -- given him a piece of it for a reason, he had to be  _ here  _ for a reason. “I -- why -- I can’t just  _ be  _ here,” he says weakly, staring at the ground. “Either I’m here for a reason or -- or not at all.” 

He had  _ thought  _ that there was some type of mission, some work for him to do, but obviously he was wrong, and now he’s obviously being punished for it, the one remnant of home he had is  _ gone  _ and he is stuck here -- 

“Hey -- hey, Wil.” Phil’s voice has gone low. “Wil, why does there have to be a reason? Why can’t you just… live?” 

Wilbur looks up, slowly, and he sees a tremor move through Phil as they make eye contact. He opens his mouth, closes it, bites the inside of his cheek. There are a thousand desires thundering around his mind -- to smoke cigarette after cigarette, to play a hundred games of solitaire with all the time in the world, to quarrel over something meaningless with an old friend, to find his brother and tease him for hours, to slit the throat of the green bastard who must’ve brought him back and offer his soul up to his void. To accept what his father is saying wholeheartedly, forget about his past not-life. 

“It’s not that simple,” he croaks finally, fully aware of how stupid and childish he sounds. “I’m not supposed to be here.” 

“But you’re still  _ here, _ aren’t you?” Phil prods, painstakingly gentle. “Who said you have to understand it?”

The words hit him like a bolt of lightning; a thundercrack that goes off and shakes his entire world. The tenseness floods out of his posture and he falls onto the bed, hand flying up to his mouth, a keening cry twisting out of him. That’s the problem of Wilbur Soot, isn’t it? Seeking to understand everything, becoming frustrated when he cannot, like a child, like a goddamned child. He didn’t understand the void and why it had suddenly left him, he didn’t understand why he had to return to life, he didn’t understand so many things.

And maybe… maybe he wasn’t meant to.

Tears fall down his face as Phil sits next to him, wraps a single arm around his bunched up shoulders. He shakes in his father’s half-embrace.

“I don’t understand,” he says aloud in a quiet confession. “I don’t.” 

“And that’s okay,” says Phil, patient as always, impossibly, more so than the void -- the void gave and took aimlessly and did not explain itself, Phil always taught and assuaged and helped and  _ stayed.  _ “It’ll be okay.” 

Wilbur finally leans into his warm, steady father. “It’s been cold, Phil,” he murmurs, vision blurred. “So cold.” 

Phil plants a kiss to the crown of his head, upon his unruly curls. It’s like he’s a child again, comforted after getting a bloody knee. “You’re home, now, Wil,” he promises, voice thick with unshed tears. “It’ll be okay.” 

Home. What a strange word, constantly shifting in its definition. Maybe home was the void, maybe home was the numerous houses Wilbur had lived in, maybe home was a long-gone country, maybe home was the man next to him. 

“Okay,” echoes Wilbur. Phil had not been too late, no, he had been perfectly on time, he always had been. “Yeah. I’m coming home.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I'm not entirely sure why the void decided to "aight imma head out" of Wilbur but I'm feeling that it is more just kind of uncontrollable and has its own whims. You know, impossible to understand.  
> 2) I'm also not entirely sure how Wil got back to Phil's house. I'm feeling respawn. Do with that what you will. 
> 
> As a religious person, this felt a little personal at times, which I feel is a little ironic? But anyway.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated.


End file.
